The saga of Shaun Bridges who was turned from the fiat order by the power of sound money, and who was rearrested the day before he was to surrender to prison has gotten more interesting. Behold, prosecutors are refusing to allow the unsealing of their latest warrant aimed at Bridges because they claim unknown allies of Bridges remain at large. It appears the investigation into the Silk Road by United States Government agents has been far more damaging to the USG's cause than any operation of the Silk Road has. Witness: Continue reading
Category Archives: The Law
Silk Road 2.0 Case Confirms FBI And CMU Tor Attack Collaboration
Judge Richard A Jones of the Western District of Washington has confirmed the collusion between the FBI and Carnegie Mellon University in carrying out an attack on the Tor network. This disclosure occurred in Jone's denial of a motion to compel discovery put forth by attorneys representing Brian Farrell who is alleged to be DoctorClu of the Silk Road 2.0 according to prosecutors. The revelation settles the mystery surrounding the "lead" on Farrell's IP address received on July 30th of 2014 by the department of Homeland Security. This previously uncertain lead enabled by Carnegie Mellon's collaboration lead to months of surveillance of Farrell's residential address before Farrell was raided and arrested on January 2nd, 2015.
This entry into the public record confirms that the United States government is selectively treating domestic law enforcement cases as a military problem while precious few citizens of the United States are treating the defense of their liberty with comparable severity. This entry into the record would make Farrell's case promising in appellate courts maintained by righteous judges, but there is a poverty of actual justice in the United States court system. The full text of the order is presented below: Continue reading
US "National Security" Crippling Business Opportunities
News emerged today that Western Digital's planned acquisition of SanDisk has hit a snag with Chinese giant Unis withdrawing its potential investment in the deal over concerns about a United States "National Security" probe. Unis was set to bring 3.775 billion dollars to the table through an investment in Western Digital before the United States government introduced this friction. An optimistic press release was issued today asserting that Western Digital is still committed to making the deal, but without the additional money from Unis resources to make the synergy as sweet as possible may be lacking.
Asus Complaint Opens Door To Torts For Internet Of Shit Insecurity
Asus recently settled with the United States Federal Trade Commission over complaints related to the appalling security and security related instructions of its wireless home network routers. The complaint was sparked by an incident in February 2014 where numerous parties discovered a text file disclosing their router's status as open to exploitation by anyone were placed on hard drives attached to the routers for the purpose of shared storage. The attached hard drives serving as shared cloud storage for the entire world was contrary to expectations set in marketing literature for the devices. The action following the complaint which lead to this settlement creates a precedent for civil suits against various Internet of Shit device makers for their security lapses and negligent instructions provided to users. The potential for these torts to collide with backdoors created for "law enforcement"when those backdoors fall into public use is an exciting legal frontier. The full text of the consent order is presented below: Continue reading
Khmer Rouge Leader Pleas Social Justice In Court
Rare surviving Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan in appealing his life sentence for crimes against humanity plead to a United Nations supported court that his only fight was for "social justice" (archived). Of course the Khmer Rouge's atrocities were the natural end of the social justice agenda, an agenda which is returning to vogue in certain circles. The social justice agenda notably dismisses concerns over actual justice to instead elevate social equality as their first principle. In this way the Khmer Rouge was an exemplar! All are equal under the yoke, and the 750,000 to 3,000,000 who died1 in Khmer Rouge atrocities were the most equal of all!
The wide uncertain range persists because the Khmer Rouge was just that effective in suppressing the individual in the name of social equality/justice. ↩
Chainalysis Partners With Only Possible Customer
This past week it was announced that Bitcoin transaction tracking startup Chainalysis has partnered with Europol according to either multiple reports or numerous outlets parroting the same press release. Feeding the "law enforcement" quackery industrial complex is of course the only way for Chainalysis to meet its only natural customers. As there no serious phenomena known as Bitcoin taint, it can be assumed blockchain tracking is set to join handwriting analysis, psychics, lie detectors, and dowsing in the compendium of pseudoscience routinely entertained by "authorities" in the field of "law" enforcement.
FBI iPhone Circle Jerk Theater
Substantial noise has been generated over the past several days concerning the fate of a colored plastic iPhone. The debate concerns whether Apple should provide agents of United States which would allow them to more effectively defeat iOS encryption through brute force. Given Apple's history of collaboration with this sort of agent it is perfectly reasonable to assume the assistance requested by the FBI from Apple has already been rendered (archived). So, why the loud public debate? Continue reading
FTC Settles With Butterfly Labs, Suspended Penalties For Management
Today the United States Federal Trade Commission announced it reached a settlement against Butterfly Labs and the firm's principals Sonny Vleisides and Jody/Darla Drake. Out of a 38,615,161 United States dollar judgment against the firm and Sonny Vleisides the firm is to pay 15,000 and Sonny Vleisides is to pay 4,000. A separate judgment against Jody/Darla Drake for 135,878 United States dollars will similarly be suspended in exchange for Jody/Darla surrendering all of the Bitcoin she mined on company machines thus giving her a choice in how to pay her penalty. These "partial" suspensions were agreed to based on the defendants' inability to pay and are offered in exchange for various promises to not engage in the criminal behavior they built their "business" on for some finite period of time. The orders pertaining to Sonny Vleisides and Butterfly Labs as well as the order for Jody/Darla Drake are reproduced in plaintext below: Continue reading
4th Amendment Champion Dies Under Uncertain Circumstances
This past weekend United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died under uncertain circumstances at a resort in Texas. Initial reports suggested Scalia died of a heart attack and then later clarification came to instead describe the cause of his death as the cessation of continued heart beats. Scalia was found with a pillow over his head wearing unwrinkled pajamas (archived). It has not yet been determined if an autopsy will be ordered to rule out the very real possibility of foul play.
Antonin Scalia's most pertinent legacy was his staunch defense of 4th amendment privacy rights, frequently rejecting "law enforcement" abuses of the American people. As technology has pushed the ways "law enforcement" could abuse the constitutional restraints on their power, Scalia was often a dissenting voice on the court insisting that adding a computer to an abuse of due process doesn't make it any less of an abuse. With the criminal overreach of law and law enforcement in the United States, the fourth amendment restrictions on police action were one of the few legal means of recourse available against injustice by the law.
The departure of Antonin Scalia drastically weakens the opportunity for actual justice in the Ross Ulbricht case should its appellate journey take it to the Supreme Court.
Optical Disc Software Approaching International Crisis
TorrentFreak reports that a substantial lobbying campaign is underway to push the United States Trade Representative to puntively place Antigua on the copyright Priority Watchlist (archived). The dispute centers around continued sales of Antigua based Slysoft's software for backing up the content of optical disc entertainment media. Adversarial legal proceedings are proceeding against Slysoft in Antigua, but through the wonders of this "Rule of Law" business Antigua is compelled to continue allowing Slysoft to continue sales as the courts make decisions according to Antiguan law. At the present Antigua has the blessing of the World Trade Organization to open an explicitly piracy related internet service as compensation for the United State's continued assaults on Antigua's online gaming industry. If the Trade Repesentative moves to sanction Antigua this would be yet another example of the United States refusal to accept that its jurisdiction ends where other state borders begin.